The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1887-07-28
sYOUNG AMERICA"

The American man, the Drawer I'M
agines, only develops himself and
spreads himself and grows flor all' he
is worth in the Great West. He is
more free and timber there, and un
folds those generous peculiarities and
largenesses of humanity which never
blossomed before. Thes'environment"
has much to do with it. The great
spaces over which he roamS contribute
to the enlargement of his mental
horizon. There have been races be-
fore who roamed the illimitable desert,
but they travelled on foot or on camel
back, and were limited in their range.
There was nothing continental about
them, as there is about our railway
desert travellers, who swing along
through thousands of miles of sand and
sage-bush with growing contempt fo1
time and space. But expansive and
great as these people have become
under the new conditions, the Drawer
has fancy that the development OF
the race has only just begun, and
that the future will show us in perfec-
ton kind of man new to the world.
Out somewhere on the Santa Fe route,
where the desert of one day was like
the desert of the day before, and the
Pullman car rolls and swings over the
| wide waste beneath the blue sky day
after day, under its black flag of smoke.
in the early graysof morning, when
the men were waiting their turns at
the ablution bowls, slip of boy,
| perhaps aged seven, stood balancing
himself on his little legs, clad in knick
| erbockers, biding his time, with all the
nonchalance of an old campaigner.
How did you sleep, cap?" asked a
| well-meaning elderly gentleman,
well, thank you" was the dignitied
tsresponse; .'ds Ial,0ays do on a sleeping
Ilcar.Y Always does? Great horrors!
Hardly out of his swaddling-clothes,
and yet he always sleeps well in a
sleeper! Was he born on wheels? Was
| he Graded in a Pullman? He has always
been in motion, probably; he started
at thirty miles an hour, no doubt, this
marvellous boy of our new era. He
/ was not born in the house at rest, but
4 the locomotive snatched him along
j with "a shrek and a roar before his
eyes were fairly open, and he was
rocked in a :'section," and his first SEN
sation of life was that of moving
Irapidly over vast arid spaces, through
cattle. ranges, and along canOns. The
| effort of quick and easy locomotion on
character may have been noted before,
but it seems that here is the production
of new sort of man, tho direct pro-
duct of our railway era. 1t is not
simply that this boy is mature, but he
must be different and nobler sort of
boy than one born, say, at home or on
4 a.eanal-boat; for whether he was born
on the rail or not, he belongs to the
i railway system of civilization. Be-
fore he gets into trousers he is old in
| experience, and he has discounted
many of the novelties that usually
break gradually on the pilgrim in this
/ world. He belongs to the new eXpan-
sive race that must live in motion,
whose proper home is the Pullman
time into dustless, sweet-smelling,
domestic life will be on the wing so to
speak. The Interstate Commerce Bill
will pass him along without friction
haps uniform divorce law will enable
him to change his marital relations at
any place where he happens to dine.
This promising lad is only faint in
timation of what we are all coming to
when we acquire the freedom of the
lcontinent, and come into that expan-
siveness of feeling and language which
characterizes the Great West. 1t is a
burst of joyous exuberance that comes
from the sense of an illimitable horizon.
1t shows itself in the tender words of a
local newspaper at Bowie, Arizona, Oh
the death of beloved citizen
- Death loves shining mark, and
: she hit dandy when she turned loose
ON JIM" And also in the closing
words of New Mexico obituary, which
Iehe Kansas Magazine quotes 'Hel
t,red spirit was released from the pain
lacking body and SCARED aloft to eterna
:lory ut f. 80 Denver time" We die
& as it were, in motion, as we sleep, ant
there is nowhere any boundary to oul
{ expansion. Perhaps we shall nevel
again know any rest as we now under
. stand the term-rest being only change
of motion-and we shall not be able t.
sleep except on the cars, and whethe
{ we die by Denver time OF by the 90tl
meridian, we shall only change OH
time. Blessed be this slip of boy wh'
is man before he is an infant, an'
teaches us what rapid transit cal
do for our race! The only thing tina
can possibly hinder us in our pro
gress will be second childhood; we hav
abolished first Charles Dudley War
3lef-. in -HuTDer's M101zine